Unwed mom-to-be role shows Hudgens continues to grow

Friday

Jan 24, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By JANE HORWITZ The Washington Post Writers Group

"Gimme Shelter" PG-13  Clich้s and melodrama intrude at times, yet this harrowing tale of a teenage mother could pull in high-schoolers in the manner of a good TV docudrama, only grittier, despite its strong Christian themes.

The story gets a little too rough for middle-schoolers. Writer/director Ron Krauss' film is based on firsthand research and blends several true stories.

Hudgens plays Agnes "Apple" Bailey.

A sullen pierced and tattooed 16-year-old Apple escapes from her addict/prostitute mom (Rosario Dawson) and runs to the father (Brendan Fraser) she's never met  now a wealthy Wall Streeter with a mansion.

Married with two children, he and his understandably hesitant wife (Stephanie Szostak) try to help Apple, but her attitude is combative.

When they realize she's pregnant, they take her to have an abortion, though the word is never uttered.

Apple runs away from the clinic, has an encounter with her (or her mother's  it's not clear) pimp, carjacks his SUV and crashes it.

She wakes up in the hospital with a broken leg. The Catholic chaplain (James Earl Jones) gets through to her a little.

He takes her to a home for teen mothers run by the kind, devout and determined Kathy (Ann Dowd).

The girls are a feisty but loyal bunch. Apple's life improves.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The film includes some violent but nongraphic outbursts.

Late in the film, Apple's mother goes after her with a razor blade. Apple gives a vivid but nonexplicit description of being sexually molested as a child.

Characters use fairly restrained profanity, including the B-word, and occasional crude language.

"Devil's Due" R  Not nearly as graphic or gory as many an R-rated occult thriller, "Devil's Due," with its smart, character-revealing script and clever shorthand for moving the narrative along, is fine for horror-loving high-schoolers 16 and older.

True, it borrows heavily from "Rosemary's Baby" (R, 1968) and the cinematic style of the R-rated "Paranormal Activity" films, telling its story with "raw video" shot by a principal character. Yet this film charts its own course and does it rather well.

Newlyweds Samantha (Allison Miller) and Zach (Zach Gilford) McCall have their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, Zach with camera in hand. One night, a palm reader gets so disturbed by what she sees in Samantha's hand that she scares the couple. A taxi driver lures them to a nightclub in a dark cellar. After much rum, they lose track of time and wake up in their hotel.

Back home, Samantha learns that she's pregnant, despite her birth control pills.

She becomes moody and full of rage, alienating and scaring people. Zach tries to understand what's happening. Mysterious people appear, and there are murmurings about the anti-Christ.

THE BOTTOM LINE: "Devil's Due" shows a lot of blood, but little graphic gore, at least not involving human characters. We do see dead deer with stomachs cut open and a human hovering over them.

As her demonic possession grows, the pregnant Samantha lashes out in sudden violent rages.

She bellows at a child, who is traumatized, and uses kinetic powers to kill strangers. The script includes some strong profanity and mild sexual innuendo.

"The Nut Job" PG  This animated 3-D film, forced in its humor and tedious in its story, may be one that parents just have to suffer through, since it's fine for kids 7 and older.

Surly (voice of Will Arnett), a less common black squirrel, survives on his wits in the big city.

He and his scruffy rat pal Buddy (Robert Tinkler) don't cooperate with the park animals  squirrels, chipmunks, possums, gophers and others  led by Raccoon (Liam Neeson), an old fellow with a silent pet cardinal on his shoulder.

Raccoon fears they haven't stored enough nuts for the winter. Andie (Katherine Heigl), a red squirrel, and Grayson (Brendan Fraser), a gray squirrel who sees himself as a hero, check out a nut-seller's wagon.

They don't realize that (a) the wagon is owned by crooks planning a bank heist, and (b) that Surly and Buddy also aim to rob it. The initial caper ends in chaos.

Next, Surly, Buddy, Andie and Grayson happen upon the storefront nut shop from which the gangsters are tunneling into the bank. The animals dodge gunfire, mousetraps, and the top gangster's (Stephen Lang) pug dog, whom they befriend.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Under-7s may briefly be scared by the non-injurious gunplay, a truck chase, and a couple of explosions, one of which topples a bridge or dam.

Animal characters appear to have drowned, but they're OK. There is mildly crude language: "Get your head out of your tail!" and "Shut the front door," which is a euphemism for a profane expression. Surly insults a scuzzy "city rat" by mentioning mange and bubonic plague. There are flatulence gags.

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